Map Your Skin
by OhMyRaito
Summary: You're like a ragdoll, in a way, pieces of fabricated truths, too-real memories and not enough emotions sewn together in the middle of the night to try and resemble a human being.'


**Disclaimer; **It's true. I don't own the Naruto characters. Personally, I'd prefer the Death Note ones anyway -grin-

* * *

**Map Your Skin**

I've always had a fascination with your skin. Unmarred, somehow, or at least it is on the face. I've never given in to temptation to look further than that before. But now as my thumb skims your hipbone, I can see tiny silvery lines threading through your skin, where you've been cut and healed. It suits you. Though I think if I tried to explain why, you'd look at me as though I was trying to be something I'm not, and tell me to 'shut up and be a man already'. But it does.

You're like a ragdoll, in a way, pieces of fabricated truths, too-real memories and not enough emotions sewn together in the middle of the night to try and resemble a human being. To try and be like the rest of the world.

You never quite managed it.

They hated you as much as they loved you, and you knew it. The only survivor of the Uchiha Clan, save the psychotic brother who murdered them all. They always wondered if you'd be just like him (_it runs in the family, ohyesitdoes, and who knows when he'll break? Best to keep away, yes, keep away and keep him happy_). And you could see it in their eyes, lurking behind the admiration and the lust for power, the sweet affection and the mindless respect. I only saw it when it was too late.

Heh, I always _was_ a few steps behind you.

Always have been. You even knew you wanted me long before I knew I wanted you. And you knew way before anyone else, that it _just didn't matter. _Like it doesn't really matter now (or maybe it matters too much) but we'll ignore the world for a bit to indulge ourselves. We deserve it. Two broken boys.

But I've always had a fascination with your skin. My own was so marred, long before I even knew it was, cursed with a seal that would whirl to life whenever my chakra got out of control. My face would never be smooth like yours, never be soft and unblemished, would never cause women to swoon and compare me to angels and other such surreal beings. The fools. You're very _real_. The only angel you resemble is the statue in the graveyard, hands clasped in prayer and flaws ricocheting through your skin, personality, thoughts.

It tastes like sweat and winter, cold with the promise of warmth underneath. And I sort of think you should taste metallic. Because of the blood that should soak it, from the hundreds you've killed. Because of the blood of your brother, and the blood of your parents. Because of the blood of me, and Sakura, and Kakashi.

Because of the way you're such a car crash of beauty. Broken, twisted, flashes of the insides mixing with the blood of victims and yet there's something, just _something _that means you can't take your eyes away.

I used to wonder if you ever thought of us, thought it was one of the most important things that there could be an answer to, right up there with, 'why am I here?'. Bonds. So goddamn important.

I was behind you in that as well. You always knew better, still do, as you slide a hand between our lips and give me a chance to back away. Bonds aren't important, not in the way that living is. And really, if you'd stayed with us, how much longer could you have survived? And we became stronger because you left, that's certain. And so did you. You became colder as well. Made another family. You just wanted to survive, any way you could. I never did understand that really - all too ready to die for my beliefs, just like the dumb hero. It took me a while to get that. I didn't, properly, until you showed me just how terrible death was.

Sometimes I think every scar on your body represents a heart you've broken. You never broke mine, but I'm waiting for the next scar, waiting for my heart to be tossed away. But I'll always have this longing to look at your skin, no matter if I hate or love you.

When I was younger, I guess it was because it proved you were human. The complex network of blue and purple at the wrist, the flicker of white and faint sapphire when you closed your eyes, the red lips when you got cut by something you were too distracted to dodge. It proved you weren't like everyone thought, proved you weren't perfect - dead.

There's nothing dead about you, nothing emotionless, nothing broken. You stitch yourself back together. Emotions, memories, skin. It doesn't matter. Scar tissue grown over pain.

It just proves you're alive. Real. So, I've always had this fascination with your skin. The way touching this part makes you gasp and writhe, how your whole life story is practically written onto your skin (it's sort of like a palm, waiting to be read, but there's no manual). The way it arches up to meet mine and the way that it is so not-and-never-will-be perfect. The way you could crumble like a statue if I pressed certain points, and the way that you knew (because you always knew, would always know) I never will. Never could. The way you wrap round me, the way that sometimes, like right now, I can't tell whose arm is whose, which legs belongs to me or to you, and if it's yours or my pulse point hidden safely behind skin and drumming our hearts out.

Your skin. Your car crash beauty. Your stitched-together-I'm-alright-now scars. Your sweat.

You're not perfect. But you're real. And you're here. Everything else is simply...irrelevant.

* * *

AN; Trying to get back into the fandom. It's a lot harder than it looks. But I've got some chaptered stories to finish, and sometimes Sasuke just crreps up on you with their broken bits of a relationship and forces you to write about them.

Plus, I've got killer writer's block so I'm damn near trying everything here, heh

Didn't quite achieve what I wanted here, so I'll probably churn out another skin related one-shot soon.


End file.
